What are some of the larger projects that still need to be done? The borough Electric Department has its own to-do list, with one transformer replacement already underway, a second being planned, and meter upgrades around town coming soon.

“It’s my job to make sure — at least on the Electric end — that council understands these are the needs of our infrastructure. We work very closely with council to make sure they’re well-informed on what the needs are,” said Electric Superintendent Andy Krauss.

“If this substation should fail, you’re talking roughly 3,500-some-odd people out of power. We’re not saying that’s going to happen, but if we keep kicking the can down the road, it may happen,” Krauss said.

If you go to that intersection you’ll actually see two electric transformers — the newer one replaced in the 1990s is known as the Lion Sub on borough plans and features a concrete oil containment system around its base, while the older Richardson transformer just next to it stands on several wooden planks that are also showing their wear.

Scheduled maintenance at the end of May should give a better picture of the old transformer’s current condition, but Electric staff have already noticed the oil level dropping due to possible leaks. Parts are getting harder to find as the transformer ages, and internal temperatures are running colder than usual in winter and high in spring — signs that it may be time to plan that next upgrade.

“The breaker at Richardson has over 12,000 operations, so it’s been run through the wringer,” he said.

Currently — no pun intended — the borough power grid has load switched off the Stony Creek substation ahead of the new transformer arrival late this fall, and upgrading that transformer from a 5 mega volt amp to a 7.5 MVA unit should give enough extra capacity to handle more switching when the time comes to replace the Richardson substation, likely in 2015.

“Right now it’s a real fine balance where they’re almost all maxed out as far as amps are concerned, but for a short period of time in case of an emergency or testing, we can run off of different unit substations,” Krauss said.

“We have everything switched around (now) so that Stony Creek has the least load, so we can get ready to change it in October and we’re not running around the system saying ‘Where are we going to put all of this load?’” he said.

Two transformer upgrades already add up to nearly $1 million in long term capital projects already in the works or in the planning stages, but that’s not all Electric is looking into. $2.5 million has been budgeted over the next five years for another project that should directly benefit nearly every borough customer: more efficient electric meters for roughly 7,500 electric customers throughout the town.

The last borough-wide meter replacement took place in 2006-07, and today’s electric meters can handle software upgrades remotely, send information back to centralized “gatekeeper” hubs for quicker analysis and troubleshooting, and can shut off service to a home or business without having to physically take the meter out of a wall.

“Say a homeowner or a business owner wants to shut their service off for whatever reason: a renovation, changing tenants, delinquent bills, whatever. Right now we go and pull the physical meter out of the socket,” Krauss said.

“It takes some electricity to run (the current) meters, but the new ones are only 1.5 watts, which is almost nothing. That’s not much on the customer end of things, but take that 1.5 watts and multiply it by 7,000 customers and there’s a significant savings there when we get that big bill at the end of the month,” Krauss said.

Those new meters should go in for smaller electric customers over the next few years, and larger customers will see new equipment coming soon too: more accurate current transformers are coming soon, which give those meters the data on how much electricity is used by those larger businesses.

“Some of the current transformers out there now were installed in the 1940s and ‘50s and may be sized incorrectly, because things have changed over the years” in terms of both electric usage and the residential or commercial use in certain buildings, he said.

“Replacing with this new hardware that’s much more efficient is both a benefit to the utility, to make sure we’re metering accurately, and a benefit to the customer to make sure they’re being charged for the power they’ve used, nothing more, nothing less,” Krauss said.

If a spot proves troublesome, staff can assess any previous issues or repairs using the GIS system, and use a newly implemented borough work order system to track the progress of fixes — and if a resident isn’t home when an upgrade is being made, the department has worked with Lansdale’s communications staff to develop a door hanger explaining the new meter upgrades and how they’re tied into the network.

“When we change a meter, we knock on your door, see if you’re working at home, if you have computer equipment that’s on we can say ‘No problem, we’ll come back at another time,’ or give you ten minutes to shut everything down and then we’ll do the replacement,” Krauss said.

If a resident comes home and their meter has already been upgraded, the door hanger explains why and how the upgrade was done, and features contact information for Electric staff (along with the borough brand) to give electric customers as much information as possible.

“If someone comes home and says ‘Why are my clocks flashing,’ we’ll have this door hanger explaining exactly why we did (the upgrade), the customer can call us directly, and we’ll explain anything that needs to be explained,” said Krauss.

Each meeting of borough council’s Electric committee features in-depth discussion on long-term projects and capital needs, as well as shorter-term developments like employee safety training and updates on projects currently underway — with the goal of making those meetings, and the department, as transparent and as accurate as possible to its consumers.

“AMP and PPL have meters and current transformers that are very accurate, so we want to make sure we’re accurate too. It’s the honest and fair way to do things,” Krauss said.

During Wednesday night’s council meeting borough Manager Timi Kirchner read a letter from a resident thanking Electric Construction Foreman Mark Weiss, First Class Lineman Ben Curran and Third Class Lineman Matt Hamilton for helping her trim trees, and repair a flat tire, while cleaning up from winter weather.

“’The trees were trimmed perfectly, and done in a timely manner,” Kirchner read from the letter, and the crew were “a shining example of how to interact with borough clients. “

Council President Jason Van Dame said the letter was another sign “our electric department is second to none. They definitely go above and beyond.”

Lansdale’s Electric Committee next meets at 8 p.m. on June 4 at the North Penn School District’s Educational Services Center, 401 E. Hancock St., with full council meeting at 9 p.m. For more information or meeting materials and agendas visit www.Lansdale.org or follow @LansdalePA on Twitter.